The Home of Australian Craft Beer

Feature Blog Of The Month: girlplusbeer

Thu Oct 4 2012 by Crafty Pint

The Crafty Pint first came across Pia Poynton when she was working at Five Bar, one of very few venues in and around Perth that’s showing any real support for craft beer. Since then, she’s moved south to the Margaret River region, where her predominantly beer-themed blog has taken off and she’s started writing occasional articles for this site, as well as for Brews News.

Currently, she’s beavering away on a couple of pieces for Crafty that are looking ahead to what’s going on at the region’s many, many breweries this summer. But before then, here’s your chance to find out a little more about Pia and what drove her to start her blog.

Area(s) of interest (of the blog):
Beer, South West breweries and lots of home cooking.

What you do when not blogging:
Watch bad action movies, take a frisbee and our dog to the beach, flick through cookbooks and take a lot of photos.

Why did you start writing the blog?
I love beer: the different styles and flavours, the people behind it, and all the stories that go along with it. Working behind the bar gave me the chance to share what I love about beer with others and now I can do that via my blog and I love the conversations that come from it.

Why should people read it?
I donât use big words, I take a lot of photos and once in a while Iâm kinda funny!

I just write about beer in my life, whether itâs cooking at home, sitting on the beach or going out to visit one of the breweries. Thereâs some great things happening with breweries and beers here in the South West and Iâm lucky enough to be right in the middle of it.

What do you love / enjoy most about beer?
I love the stories: stories about how a beer is made, where an idea for a beer comes from, the history of a style, or simply how someone discovered their love for craft beer. Makes me smile every time and every story is different.

Pia enjoying a beer (shyly!) at Colonial Brewery

I also love the fact that everyone in the Australian beer industry seem to have an invisible sign on their chest saying: âI love beer too! Letâs chat!â Iâve never met a brewer doesnât have time to say hello or has closely guarded secrets about brewing. Itâs fantastic and still amazes me.

Your favourite Australian beer?
I think I have to say Colonial Brewery’s limited release Baltic Porter. I was lucky enough to be invited to a brew day for this so I get a lot of joy from pretending I helped brew it!

Favourite non-Australian beer?
Iâve re-written my answer for this question multiple times now. Iâm not sure whether itâs my favourite but I do love Saison Dupont, Iâve done a few beer events with this and the flavours blow peoples' minds â youâve got to love that.

Favourite place to enjoy a beer?
At the brewery; any brewery. Itâs a great sensory experience to be drinking beer whilst being able to see the brewers, the tanks and smell the malt. Bliss!

Hopes for beer in Australia?
More of it and more people falling in love with it.

As well as checking out Pia’s beer- and food-heavy blog, you can follow her adventures on Twitter.

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The Crafty Pint is an independent online magazine and resource for anyone interested in craft beer in Australia. We bring an honest, old-fashioned journalistic approach to beer's brave new world, telling stories because they're worth telling not because someone is paying us to write them.

Like many of the people who have changed the face of beer in Australia, we believe in authenticity, integrity, enjoyment and love. We hope to play a role in helping good beer, brewed by good people, find its way into the hands of more drinkers.